


Friends, Maybe

by iaminlovewiththesky



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: (nothing onscreen), Eggs Benefits, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, this isnt too shippy sadly bc it would have been too sudden but it suggests it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 19:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12042882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaminlovewiththesky/pseuds/iaminlovewiththesky
Summary: Max gives Preston a hand hiding his bruises.





	Friends, Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in an hour so please dont be too harsh its my first finished camp camp fic

                Dinner on the day of the egg disaster is loud, the children still grieving over their lost eggs. Max, the only one unaffected- other than disgust at the memory of watching the mother platypus eat her child- pokes his mashed potatoes. He glances around to see if anyone’s gotten ahold of themselves.

                Ered seems fine, of course, since she was the one who killed her egg. Dolph seems a little bummed, but not too bad. Harrison and Nerris are still arguing, Nerris blaming him for the death of Eggolas. Space Kid is just disappointed about never getting to hold his egg, while Neil is silent, not talking to anyone. Nikki is admonishing the platypus, who doesn’t care. Nurf is loudly sobbing, and Preston... isn’t here.

                It’s not too surprising- Max recognizes the bruises and black eye he was sporting before, even if the whole egg situation is over, it has to be taking a toll on him. He jabs his potatoes more violently as he glances at Nurf- who the hell hits someone over a stupid egg project? And he still wants to know how the egg _wrote a note and ran away._

                His mind dwells on Preston, though. The black eye and scrape on his face aren’t going to go away any time soon, especially not with how Preston spent the day just walking around. It looked way too bad for Preston to have iced it at any point. Maybe he just didn’t want to tell David in order to get an ice pack...?

                Well. Fuck. He’s probably wrong- probably just projecting onto him- but he feels pretty sympathetic, since he’s felt the same way more times than he can count. Max gets up to throw out his untouched meal and leaves- David doesn’t notice, busy trying to calm down Nerris.

                He heads to the office, walking right in and ignoring Gwen’s cursing as her chair almost tips over.

                “What the hell are you doing here, you little shit?!” He continues to ignore her and grabs an ice pack and a bandage. Gwen narrows her eyes, but sighs and gives up. “Just.... return the ice pack when it gets warm. And don’t cause any trouble.” Max rolls his eyes and leaves.

                When he’s done, he heads to the tents. It’s quiet, but he can tell that Preston is in his tent, and he knocks on the door of the tent. Of course, because it’s a tent, it just makes a quiet flapping noise, but there’s a flurry of activity inside before Preston comes out.

                “Oh- Max? What are _you_ doing _here_?!” He’s wearing sunglasses again, but it’s still easy to see underneath that he now has two black eyes.

                “Shut up and get back in the tent.” Preston flinches, making Max scowl, but does so.

                When they’re both inside, Preston wrings his hands together. “ _Really,_ though, what _are_ you doing here?”

                “Take off your sunglasses,” he says instead of answering, and Preston pales, making the scrape on his cheek stand out even more.

                “Oh, no... Everything’s _fine_! I’m- wait, did you... did you come here because you were _worried_ about me?”

                Max closes his eyes for a second before opening them again. “Listen. Did you put an ice pack on your eye? Or eyes?”

                “That didn’t _answer_ my _question,_ Max.” Preston smiles briefly. “But... I didn’t know I was _supposed_ to.”

                “What, you’ve never gotten a black eye before?”

                “I’m not a _ruffian_ like you, I don’t get into fights!”

                He scowls again, this time at Preston, which makes him blanch. Max bites his lip when he sees Preston’s reaction. “...whatever. I got you one, just in case.” He pulls it out of his hoodie, still as cold as it was in the freezer, and offers it to him.

                Preston hesitates before taking it. “Well! _Thank you._ ” Max shrugs, and Preston turns around before taking off the sunglasses and putting it onto one of his eyes.

                “You shouldn’t leave it on for too long. Just for ten minutes. Then switch to the other eye. It’ll make it swell less.”

                “Oh, _good_..! It’s supposed to _rain_ tomorrow, I didn’t want to have to _explain..._ ” He trails off.

                “Yeah. I get it.” Max stands against the tent wall.

                “Did we go over this in _first aid camp_? I didn’t pay attention.”

                “Uh... I didn’t either.” He already knew most of the basics, anyway. “But probably.”

                “ _Hm!_ ” He’s quiet for a few moments, just holding the compress against his eye. “I... _really_ appreciate you bringing this for me.”

                “It’s whatever. I figured you didn’t know what to do, and I’m good at hiding bruises, so.”

                Preston drops the compress and whips around to face him, eyes wide. “You _what?_ ”

                Fuck. “What? I just get into fights at school a lot,” he lies through his teeth. “It gets annoying when people ask where bruises come from, so I got good at hiding them.” That part is much less of a lie.

                “ _Oh_! Oh...” Preston laughs, relieved, and picks up the ice pack to put it back on his eye. He’s quick to change the subject. “So this will _get rid_ of the bruises?”

                “Uh... not really. They’ll fade faster, but it’ll still be bad tomorrow.”

                “Oh.” He frowns. “Do you... know any _other ways_ to hide it? The sunglasses won’t work.”

                Max frowns. “None that’ll work for you.”

                “For me, _specifically_?”

                “Concealer works, but it’s not like...” Fuck, he can’t bring up his own stash. “...if I steal Gwen’s, it’s not going to match your skin. It’ll look weird.”

                Preston looks at him a little oddly, not fooled by his mid-sentence hesitation, but quickly lights up. “ _Wait!_ There should be some concealer in my theater _makeup kit_!” He sets the ice pack down again and goes to fetch it. It looks mostly untouched, and Max takes it from him to look it over.

                “This will work. ...you should ice your other eye now.”

                He puts the ice pack on the other eye while Max takes out concealer and checks them against Preston’s arm. “You... know a lot about _makeup_?”

                “ _No._ I just know how to cover up black eyes,” he says gruffly. He finds one that matches, and then pulls out a pinker one. “Put a little of the red one on, and then the other one. It should look mostly normal, unless there’s a lot of swelling. Which there shouldn’t be, because you’re icing it.”

                “...we don’t really _talk,_ do we?” Preston says suddenly. “You don’t talk to _anyone_ much other than _Neil and Nikki._ ”

                “What?” He looks at him.

                “You didn’t _talk_ to anyone before Neil and Nikki got here. No one knew _anything_ about you, other than that you hate _Camp Campbell_ and you were the only one of who was here _last year._ ”

                “...yeah, so?”

                “We should talk!” He says, sounding excited. “I never would have _guessed_ you know this makeup stuff, or that you would be worried about my... my face, and I don’t know anything _else_ you’re good at! _Actually_... what _camp_ are you in? You don’t have an _area_ set up like the rest of us do.”

                Max is quiet. He definitely didn’t think too far ahead when he was coming here, and it was probably a bad idea to tell him about the makeup trick- he should have stuck with just giving him the ice pack. “Preston.”

                “ _Yes_?”

                “You should take the ice off your face now.” Preston blinks, surprise and then obvious disappointment crossing his face as he lowers the ice pack.

                “...if I show you how to put the concealer on, do you promise not to tell anyone that I was here tonight? Or about whatever we talk about.”

                “...OH! SURE!” Max winces at the loudness.

                “Be quiet, fuck, you don’t have to yell.”

                Preston blinks for a moment before nodding. “Right, _sorry_.”

                “Whatever.” He grabs the pink concealer. “Sit down on your bed, I can’t reach your face.” Preston quickly takes a seat, and Max carefully starts to put it on him. “...I don’t really care about talking to most of the other campers, because you’re all assholes.” Preston starts to frown. “I’m an asshole too, so it doesn’t matter, but really, you all suck. Harrison pulled that trick on me where I was vomiting up his props for a week, Nurf’s a bully, Dolph is... Dolph, you yelled at me because I can’t act-”

                “I _yelled_ at you because you weren’t _trying,”_ he corrects, indignant.

                “It’s not like I asked to be in your play,” he says bitterly. “And why should I try when I’m going to fail anyway? The whole thing was a disaster, it’s not like anyone at camp is an actor besides you, and you were just directing it.”

                “You still could have tried! _No one_ tried! I worked _so hard_ on writing that play! I _really_ liked it! And no one tried except that _Flower Scout_ _bitch_ who just wanted _Neil!_ ”

                Max moves to the other eye. “...yeah, okay. Sorry. My point is that I don’t want to talk to people. Neil and Nikki are my...” He hesitates, remembering the week before and how they joined in on everyone making fun of Mr. Honeynuts. “Friends. I guess. We get along because we try to escape camp together. I don’t think they know much more about me than you do.”

                “ _Really?_ But I thought they were your _best friends._ ”

                “No.” He puts away the pink concealer and gets the skin tone one.

                “Huh. Well... are _we_ friends?”

                Max pauses. He hates that question- if he says yes, he’s gonna get stuck with another person wanting to spend time with him every day, and if he says no, he’s going to hurt Preston’s feelings, which he doesn’t want to do, especially after today.

                “...sure.”

                Preston’s eyes light up as he smiles, and Max can feel butterflies in his stomach. Wait. What? He tries to squash the feeling down and starts putting on the skin tone concealer.

                “ _Fantastic_! I didn’t expect you to say _yes!_ ”

                He shushes him and quickly moves to finish the other eye. When it’s done, he pulls back. “There you go.” Preston jumps to his feet and grabs an intricate hand mirror to look at himself.

                “I look so much _better_!” He grins wider. “Other than the scrape- can you put concealer on that, too?”

                “No. It’ll get infected. I grabbed you a bandage, though.” He pulls the big square bandage out of his pocket and offers it to him.

                Preston sits on the bed again instead. “Can you put it on me, since you can see it?” He rolls his eyes, but carefully puts it on to cover his cheek. “ _Thank_ you.”

                “It’s fine.”

                He smiles at himself in the mirror before looking up at Max. “Oh.”

                “What?”

                “I didn’t _see_ anything you did with the _makeup_. Could you help me put it on again _tomorrow morning_?”

                “...” He sighs. “Fine.”

                “ _Yes_!”

 


End file.
